From March 17-21, 2008, Students for a Democratic Society led over 90 student actions across the country to mark the 5th Anniversary of the U.S. Invasion of Iraq! (See newsds.org/march20 for more details of the nationwide SDS actions)

One of the most exciting actions was in Washington DC. DC-SDS’ “Funk the War 3” dance party brought together 500+ youth and students to shut down K Street, where War Profiteers like Lockheed Martin and Bechtel are headquartered.

Those companies were shut down by the mobile antiwar dance party, which also hit up the Armed Forces Recruiting Center and spread the love there.

The action culminated in an SDS-organized blockade of Connecticut and K Sts., where 11 students chained themselves to school desks and demanded money for education, not for war. The intersection was held for over an hour by 200+ youth, despite pouring rain, until it was apparent that police were not willing or able to break up the blockade, and the students declared victory!

The SDS action was the largest and most energetic event of United for Peace and Justice’s “5 Years Too Many” events in DC on March 19th. The week of action brought major media attention to SDS, including 3 days straight of “The Return of Students for a Democratic Society” headlining the front page of MichaelMoore.com, an awesome article in The Nation, and a feature in the New York Times. It seems that SDS has gained a new prominence in the antiwar movement and is taking off right now!

bell hooks is brilliant, let me say that first. I saw her speak recently and she totally blew me away, one of the most inspiring speakers I’ve ever seen. This was her first-ever book, from 1981, so it’s interesting for understanding where she started out, and as a kind of ‘period piece’ where you can tell she was really pushing against the boundaries and limitations of 1970s feminism. Ain’t I A Woman examines the history of the black female in America, including the sexist nature of the black civil rights/freedom movement, and the racist nature of the white feminist movement. It’s a good book for all of these reasons.

However, bell hooks has said that she doesn’t really like this book anymore, and it’s clear that there are some weaknesses here. Read the rest of this entry »

FUNK THE WAR with Philadelphia Students for a Democratic Society on March 21st as we dance through Penn and Drexel Universities to demand an end to war and student debt! We are celebrating the launch of our Drexel and Penn chapters with a sonic boom for the 5th anniversary of the War in Iraq. Across the nation, Students for a Democratic Society is holding walk outs, nonviolent actions for student power, peace, and affordable education.

The $500 billion dollar war in Iraq has been paid for with cuts in education and student aid. A struggling economy, rising tuition, predatory loan companies and expensive textbooks have shouldered more than 2/3 of students with an average of $19,000 in individual debt. Universities should be actively rejecting the Federal cuts to education by funding loan education programs, providing more need based financial aid, freezing tuition, and creating more opportunities for low income students.Meet us on FRIDAY, MARCH 21st:

This great, short essay “Against School” targets modern, mass, mandatory schooling as an educational fraud, arguing that the real purpose of school is to divide, demoralize, and train youthfor lifetimes as workers and consumers. In other words, to produce obedience and helplessness on an industrial scale. I think a second function, which the author does not address, is that mass mandatory schooling takes children away from their parents for the entire day, freeing up the adults for higher levels of work and consumption. Thus the “daycare prisons” we send our kids to every day help facilitate the “daily grind” that imprisons our parents in the rat-race of toil and buying that powers industrial production and profits.

How public education cripples our kids, and whyBy John Taylor Gatto

John Taylor Gatto is a former New York State and New York City Teacher of the Year and the author, most recently, of The Underground History of American Education. He was a participant in the Harper’s Magazine forum “School on a Hill,” which appeared in the September 2003 issue.

I taught for thirty years in some of the worst schools in Manhattan, and in some of the best, and during that time I became an expert in boredom. Boredom was everywhere in my world, and if you asked the kids, as I often did, why they felt so bored, they always gave the same answers: The said the work was stupid, that it made no sense, that they already knew it. They said they wanted to be doing something real, not just sitting around. They said teachers didn’t seem to know much about their subjects and clearly weren’t interested in learning more. And the kids were right: their teachers were every bit as bored as they were.

The SDS News Bulletin working group is proud to bring you our third issue, much improved over the first two issues in our humble opinion. We amped up the articles, poetry, art and layout from Issue 1 & 2, and you made it all possible by sending in your work, thoughts, ideas and love.